Boyhood is a groundbreaking coming-of-age film created by American film director and screenwriter Richard Linklater. While other coming-of-age films use different actors to play the protagonist at various ages, Boyhood uses the same boy to tell the fictitious tale of a child growing into a young adult.

The experimental film was shot over a span of 12 years and lead actor Ellar Coltrane was chosen for the part of Mason in 2002, when he was only 7 years old. Since then, the cast of the movie had reunited every summer to shoot a new phase of the Mason’s life.

Cast alongside Ellar were actors Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette – Mason’s parents – who also aged naturally throughout the film, adding to the realism of the story. Mason’s sister is played by Linklater’s real-life daughter Lorelei, who grows from a young girl to an adult before our very eyes, as the movie progresses.